Missed AOS appt

[FukuokaFan 0]

question for you experienced folks...not sure if there is any help for my problem.

My wife came over on fiance visa..got here in November, married in December, filed AOS in late January, and travel authorization came in April. We got fingerprints done in March. Finally appt letter came and appt was on May 26. Of course I am supposed to be in Tokyo for summer internship that week...flight already bought and need to be at work then. I called April 23 to get it changed..either up or in September when we would be back and they tell me a letter will be sent. After not hearing anything for 2 weeks I make and infopass appointment for May 13. So we go and the woman there [this is in Detroit BTW] tells me to write a letter which i do while we are there and she takes it and says we will get a new date. I specified in the letter that we wouldn't be back from Japan until late August so could we have an appt in September?

We can't forward the mail to my parents in another state because the immigration office finally the landlord gets the letters and of course they rescheduled for June 16...which we missed. The next letter says the petition has been abandoned and I guess we start over?

What are our options? I read somewhere that we have 30 days to explain why we missed the interview? Is this true and to whom is the letter sent? Would and attorney be able to help with this? Do we have any grounds to complain that the interview was scheduled for a time we TOLD them we would be gone [overseas?]

Anybody know a good immigration attorney in or around Detroit?

Thanks for the help

[newlyweds 0]

Maybe you can do an infopass again at that local office you wrote that letter to. But I had read some posts here back then that some people missed the interview because they didn't get the notice on time, they wrote a letter or some sort. I think you'll have to send it to USCIS. I'm sorry I couldn't be of much help. Hopefully some more people chime in especially those who had this experience.

[FukuokaFan 0]

Maybe you can do an infopass again at that local office you wrote that letter to. But I had read some posts here back then that some people missed the interview because they didn't get the notice on time, they wrote a letter or some sort. I think you'll have to send it to USCIS. I'm sorry I couldn't be of much help. Hopefully some more people chime in especially those who had this experience.

Thanks for the reply. I have written a letter and contacted an attorney..so hopefully we can do something about this mess.

FF

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

So, you're still out of the US now, and your wife left with only her AP?

Unfortunately, her AP is only valid while her AOS petition was pending. When her AOS petition was closed because it was considered abandoned, her period of authorized stay ended. She has no status in the US to return to, so the AP document is useless.

USCIS is usually reasonable about rescheduling AOS interviews when they conflict with some other urgent matter, but to ask that the interview be postponed for several months is not something they would usually accommodate. They aren't required to work around your schedule. You asked for the interview to be rescheduled, and they rescheduled it. In their mind, your wife applied for permanent residence when she was not really ready to become a permanent resident yet.

I apologize if this sounded a little harsh, but this process often requires you to rearrange your priorities and put your life on hold, to some degree, while you're dealing with the government.

I think your only hope is to try to get the AOS case reopened. If your attorney manages to do this then your wife's AP should be reinstated. If they schedule an interview then drop whatever you're doing and get back to the US for the interview. If the attorney isn't successful at getting the case reopened then you're going to need to file a petition for a spousal visa.

[FukuokaFan 0]

So, you're still out of the US now, and your wife left with only her AP?

Unfortunately, her AP is only valid while her AOS petition was pending. When her AOS petition was closed because it was considered abandoned, her period of authorized stay ended. She has no status in the US to return to, so the AP document is useless.

USCIS is usually reasonable about rescheduling AOS interviews when they conflict with some other urgent matter, but to ask that the interview be postponed for several months is not something they would usually accommodate. They aren't required to work around your schedule. You asked for the interview to be rescheduled, and they rescheduled it. In their mind, your wife applied for permanent residence when she was not really ready to become a permanent resident yet.

I apologize if this sounded a little harsh, but this process often requires you to rearrange your priorities and put your life on hold, to some degree, while you're dealing with the government.

I think your only hope is to try to get the AOS case reopened. If your attorney manages to do this then your wife's AP should be reinstated. If they schedule an interview then drop whatever you're doing and get back to the US for the interview. If the attorney isn't successful at getting the case reopened then you're going to need to file a petition for a spousal visa.

Yeah that's pretty much what I thought. We'll see what the attorney can do.

We went ahead and left because we did have an infopass appointment at the local office the week before we left where they told us to write the letter requesting a late August appointment, so I thought it would be good. Not sure if I was clear but there were two requests to reschedule..the June 16 date was apparently from the first request [done in April but no notification to us]. The second request was the letter written at the USCIS office on may 13..not sure what happened to that one.

Hopefully we won't have to do the spousal visa from Japan...it makes me sick to think we may have to do this all again.

Thanks for the input.

FF